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diff --git a/win/README.binary b/win/README.binary index 8a181f3..64d2fa0 100644 --- a/win/README.binary +++ b/win/README.binary @@ -1,40 +1,47 @@ Tcl/Tk 8.1 for Windows, Binary Distribution -RCS: @(#) $Id: README.binary,v 1.5 1999/04/21 21:50:33 rjohnson Exp $ +RCS: @(#) $Id: README.binary,v 1.6 1999/04/24 01:46:54 stanton Exp $ 1. Introduction --------------- This directory contains the binary distribution of Tcl/Tk 8.1.0 for Windows. It was compiled with Microsoft Visual C++ 5.0 using Win32 -API, so that it will run under Windows NT and Windows 95. The -information here corresponds to the first release of 8.1. +API, so that it will run under Windows NT, Windows 95, and Windows 98. + +Tcl provides a powerful platform for creating integration applications +that tie together diverse applications, protocols, devices, and +frameworks. When paired with the Tk toolkit, Tcl provides the fastest +and most powerful way to create GUI applications that run on PCs, Unix, +and the Macintosh. Tcl can also be used for a variety of web-related +tasks and for creating powerful command languages for applications. + +Tcl is maintained, enhanced, and distributed freely as a service to the +Tcl community by Scriptics Corporation. 2. Documentation ---------------- -The best way to get started with Tcl is to read one of the introductory -books on Tcl: +The official home for Tcl and Tk on the Web is at: + http://www.scriptics.com + +The home page for the Tcl/Tk 8.1 release is + http://www.scriptics.com/software/8.1.html - Practical Programming in Tcl and Tk, 2nd Edition, by Brent Welch, - Prentice-Hall, 1997, ISBN 0-13-616830-2 +Information about new features in Tcl/Tk 8.1 can be found at + http://www.scriptics.com/software/whatsnew81.html - Tcl and the Tk Toolkit, by John Ousterhout, - Addison-Wesley, 1994, ISBN 0-201-63337-X +Detailed release notes can be found at + http://www.scriptics.com/software/relnotes/tcl8.1 - Exploring Expect, by Don Libes, - O'Reilly and Associates, 1995, ISBN 1-56592-090-2 +Information about Tcl itself can be found at + http://www.scriptics.com/scripting/ -Other books are listed at -http://www.scriptics.com/resource/doc/books/ -http://www.tclconsortium.org/resources/books.html +There are many Tcl books on the market. Most are listed at + http://www.scriptics.com/resource/doc/books/ -There is also an official home for Tcl and Tk on the Web: - http://www.scriptics.com -These Web pages include information about the latest releases, products -related to Tcl and Tk, reports on bug fixes and porting issues, HTML -versions of the manual pages, and pointers to many other Tcl/Tk Web -pages at other sites. Check them out! +There are notes about compiling Tcl at + http://www.scriptics.com/support/howto/compile.html 3. Installation --------------- @@ -49,213 +56,33 @@ We are no longer supporting use of Tcl with 16-bit versions of Windows. Microsoft has completely dropped support of the Win32s subsystem. -4. Summary of changes in Tcl 8.1 --------------------------------- -The most important changes in Tcl 8.1 are summarized below. See -the README and changes files in the distribution -for more complete information on what has changed, including both feature -changes and bug fixes. - -Internationalization. Tcl has undergone a major -revision to support international character sets: - - -All strings in Tcl are now represented in UTF-8 instead of ASCII, so -that Tcl now supports the full Unicode character set. -The representation of ASCII characters is unchanged (in UTF-8 anything -that looks like an ASCII character is an ASCII character), but -characters with the high-order bit set, such as those in ISO-8859, -are represented with multi-byte sequences, as are all Unicode -characters with values greater than 127. This change does not affect -Tcl scripts but it does affect C code that parses strings. -Tcl automatically translates between UTF-8 and the normal encoding for -the platform during interactions with the system. - -In Tcl scripts the backslash sequence \u can be used to enter -16-bit Unicode characters. \o and \x generate -only 8-bit characters as before. - -The fconfigure command now supports a -encoding -option for specifying the encoding of an open file or socket. Tcl will -automatically translate between the specified encoding and UTF-8 during -I/O. See the directory library/encoding to find out what encodings are -supported (eventually there will be an encoding command -that makes this information more accessible). - -There are several new C APIs that support UTF-8 and various encodings. -See the manual entry Utf.3 for procedures that -translate between Unicode and UTF-8 and manipulate UTF-8 strings. -See Encoding.3 for procedures that create new encodings and -translate between encodings. See ToUpper.3 for procedures -that perform case conversions on UTF-8 strings. - -Binary data. Binary data is handled differently in Tcl 8.1 than in -Tcl 8.0. Tcl 8.1 uses the UTF-8 facilities to represent binary data: -the character value zero is represented with a multi-byte sequence, so -that (once again) strings in Tcl 8.1 never contain null bytes. This -means that binary data is now accepted everywhere in Tcl and Tk (in -Tcl 8.0 the support for binary data was incomplete). If you have C -code that needs to manipulate the bytes of binary data (as opposed to -just passing the data through) you should use a new object type called -"byte array". See the manual entry ByteArrObj.3 for information about -procedures such as Tcl_GetByteArrayFromObj. - -New regular expressions. Tcl 8.1 contains a brand new implementation -of regular expressions from Henry Spencer. This new version supports -almost all of the Perl extensions and it also handles UTF-8 and binary -data. - -Multi-Threading. Tcl 8.1 is multi-thread safe. Each thread can -contain several Tcl interpreters, but a given interpreter can not be -accessed from more than one thread. Each thread runs its own event -loop, and you can post events to other threads. There is not yet -support for tcl level use of threading except for a test -command. (Compile tcltest and try testthread.) Tk 8.1 is not yet -multi-thread safe, and may never be due to limitations of Xlib. - - -What's new in Tk 8.1 - -The most important changes in Tk 8.1 are summarized below. See the -README and changes files in the distribution for more complete -information on what has changed, including both feature changes and -bug fixes. - -1. Internationalization. Tk has undergone a major overhaul to support -the new internationalization features of Tcl. The font package has -been rewritten to support arbitrary Unicode characters; when you -specify a particular font such as "Times 12" Tk may actually use -additional fonts to display Unicode characters that don't exist in the -font you chose. Tk guarantees to find a way to display any Unicode -character regardless of the font you selected, as long as there is -some font in the system that contains the Unicode character. The -input method support in Tk has also been modified to support full -Unicode characters. - -2. Send/DDE support. The send command now works on Windows platforms. -It is implemented using DDE and there is a new dde command that allows -Tk applications to use DDE to communicate with other Windows -applications. send still doesn't work on the Macintosh. - -3. Configuration options. There is a new library of C procedures for -manipulating widget configuration options using Tcl_Objs instead of -strings. This should eventually make Tk much more efficient. Label, -button, checkbutton, radiobutton, and menu widgets have been modified -to use the new library. See SetOptions.3 for information on the new C -APIs. - -4. More Tcl_Obj support. Several additional C library procedures have -been added to support Tcl_Objs. See the manual entries 3DBorder.3, -GetAnchor.3, GetBitmap.3, GetColor.3, GetCursor.3, GetFont.3, -GetJustify.3, and GetPixels.3. - -Incompatibilities - -Although the 8.1 releases involve substantial changes to the -implementation of Tcl and Tk, the changes should introduce few -if any compatibility problems for Tcl scripts or extensions. Here -are the compatibility problems that we know of: - -The changes to the regular expression package required a few minor -syntax changes in order to support all the new features: - -- Backslash inside brackets is an escape whereas before it was a - literal character. To specify a literal \ in brackets you must - write \\. - -- Some escapes, such as \d, \s, and \w, now mean special things in a - bracket expression. Other escapes , such as \D, \S, \W, \A and \Z, - are illegal. - -- A { followed by a digit will no longer match those two characters. - Instead, it will start a bound. Such sequences should be rare and - will often result in an error because the following characters will - not look like a valid bound. - -- Backslash followed by an alphanumeric character is either an escape - or an error. Several of the new escapes were treated as literal - characters in earlier versions of Tcl. - -- The matching order has changed slightly. Here is an explanation - from Henry Spencer: - - Both the old package and the new package find the match that starts - earliest in the string. Where things get tricky is when there is more - than one possible match starting at that point, different in either - length or internal details (that is, which subexpressions match where). - - The old package examines possible matches in a complex but well-defined - order, and simply reports the first one it finds. The new package - examines all possible matches simultaneously, and reports the longest. - For example, (week|wee)(night|knights) matches all of "weeknights". - - When two possible matches are of the same length, priority is decided - based on getting the longest possible matches for early subexpressions, - with later subexpressions accepting whatever they can get. This means - that either (wee|week)(kly|ly) or (week*)(k?ly) matches "weekly" as - week-ly, not wee-kly. More subtly, when .*|a.c matches "abc", the .* - matches the whole string and the a.c doesn't even get a chance to - participate. - - When non-greedy quantifiers are used, things get more complicated. If - all quantifiers in a regular expression are non-greedy, the exact same - rules apply except with "longest" replaced by "shortest" everywhere. - When greedy and non-greedy quantifiers are mixed, it's complicated and - difficult to explain. - -Known Problems With These Releases - -Both the internationalization support and the new regular expression -package are large, complicated, and young, which means there are -likely to be lots of bugs. We need your help in finding and fixing -problems. This is particularly important for internationalization, -since we don't have the right equipment or knowledge to test -under very many conditions. Here are some of the most glaring bugs -or missing features that we know of: - -- We haven't been able to test input methods in Tk under Unix to be - sure that the full Unicode character set is being substituted - properly in %A substitutions. This means that it probably doesn't - work. We have been able to test under Windows and the Macintosh. - -- In Tk, PostScript generation does not work correctly for characters - outside the ASCII subset. - -- The threading for Tcl is brand new so there are likely to be bugs, - although it is based on early work done by Richard Hipp. We have - done some testing on a multiprocessor Solaris machine, but none on - Windows or other flavors of UNIX on a multiprocessor. - -6. Known Bugs/Missing Features ------------------------------- - -- Clock command fails to handle daylight savings time boundaries for - things like "last week". -- Background processes aren't properly detached on NT. -- File events only work on sockets and pipes. -- Files/console/serial ports don't support nonblocking I/O. -- There is no support for custom cursors/application icons. The core - set of X cursors is supported, although you cannot change their color. -- Stippling of arcs isn't implemented yet. -- Some "wm" functions don't map to Windows and aren't implemented; - others should map, but just aren't implemented. The worst offenders - are the icon manipulation routines. -- Color management on some displays doesn't work properly resulting in - Tk switching to monochrome mode. -- Tk seems to fail to draw anything on some Matrox Millenium cards. -- Printing does not work for images (e.g. GIF) on a canvas. -- Tk_dialog appears in the upper left corner. This is a symptom of a - larger problem with "wm geometry" when applied to unmapped or - iconified windows. -- PPM images are using the wrong translation mode for writing to - files, resulting in CR/LF terminated PPM files. -- Tk crashes if the display depth changes while it is running. Tk - also doesn't consistently track changes in the system colors. - -There may be more that we don't know about, so be sure to submit bug -reports when you run into problems. If you have comments or bug -reports for the Windows version of Tcl, please use our on-line bug -form at: +4. Linking against the binary release +-------------------------------------- + +In order to link your applications against the .dll files shipped with +this release, you will need to use the appropriate .lib file for your +compiler. In the lib directory of the installation directory, there +are library files for the Microsoft Visual C++ compiler: + + tcl81.lib + tk81.lib + +5. Building dynamically loadable extensions +-------------------------------------------- + +Please refer to the example dynamically loadable extension provided on +our ftp site: + + ftp://ftp.scriptics.com/pub/tcl/misc/example.zip + +This archive contains a template that you can use for building +extensions that will be loadable on Unix, Windows, and Macintosh +systems. + +6. Reporting Bugs +----------------- +If you have comments or bug reports for the Windows version of Tcl, +please use our on-line bug form at: http://www.scriptics.com/support/bugForm.html @@ -320,68 +147,4 @@ subscribing put the line: in the body instead (or wintcl). -11. Tcl version numbers ----------------------- - -Each Tcl release is identified by two numbers separated by a dot, e.g. -6.7 or 7.0. If a new release contains changes that are likely to break -existing C code or Tcl scripts then the major release number increments -and the minor number resets to zero: 6.0, 7.0, etc. If a new release -contains only bug fixes and compatible changes, then the minor number -increments without changing the major number, e.g. 7.1, 7.2, etc. If -you have C code or Tcl scripts that work with release X.Y, then they -should also work with any release X.Z as long as Z > Y. - -Alpha and beta releases have an additional suffix of the form b1 or b1. -For example, Tcl 7.0b1 is the first beta release of Tcl version 7.0, -Tcl 7.0b2 is the second beta release, and so on. A beta release is an -initial version of a new release, used to fix bugs and bad features before -declaring the release stable. An alpha release is like a beta release, -except it's likely to need even more work before it's "ready for prime -time". New releases are normally preceded by one or more alpha and beta -releases. We hope that lots of people will try out the alpha and beta -releases and report problems. We'll make new alpha/beta releases to fix -the problems, until eventually there is a beta release that appears to -be stable. Once this occurs we'll make the final release. - -We can't promise to maintain compatibility among alpha and beta releases. -For example, release 7.1b2 may not be backward compatible with 7.1b1, even -though the final 7.1 release will be backward compatible with 7.0. This -allows us to change new features as we find problems during beta testing. -We'll try to minimize incompatibilities between beta releases, but if -a major problem turns up then we'll fix it even if it introduces an -incompatibility. Once the official release is made then there won't -be any more incompatibilities until the next release with a new major -version number. - -Patch releases have a suffix such as p1 or p2. These releases contain -bug fixes only. A patch release (e.g Tcl 7.6p2) should be completely -compatible with the base release from which it is derived (e.g. Tcl -7.6), and you should normally use the highest available patch release. - -As of 8.0.3, the patch releases use a second . instead of 'p'. So, the -8.0 release went to 8.0p1, 8.0p2, and 8.0.3. The alphas and betas will -still use the 'a' and 'b' letters in their tcl_patchLevel. - -12. Linking against the binary release --------------------------------------- - -In order to link your applications against the .dll files shipped with -this release, you will need to use the appropriate .lib file for your -compiler. In the lib directory of the installation directory, there -are library files for the Microsoft Visual C++ compiler: - - tcl81.lib - tk81.lib - -13. Building dynamically loadable extensions --------------------------------------------- - -Please refer to the example dynamically loadable extension provided on -our ftp site: - - ftp://ftp.scriptics.com/pub/tcl/misc/example.zip -This archive contains a template that you can use for building -extensions that will be loadable on Unix, Windows, and Macintosh -systems. |